A Progression of Souls
by Annwyd
Summary: Several brief ficlets based on the Bleach world and characters, covering many different moods and ideas. Contains various pairings, indicated at the start of every chapter.
1. Threads

This chaptered fanfiction is actually a series of drabbles, ficlets, and flashfic that I've written for various prompts and purposes over my time in Bleach fandom. Style may vary, given the difference in when I wrote them. Pairings will definitely vary, but I will indicate each one at the start of each "chapter."

* * *

Pairing: Ishida/Orihime. Can be read as platonic.

No prompt.

* * *

"Ishida-kun--"

He stopped, looking back at her. "What is it, Inoue-san? We have to get moving..." He had a tense knot of worry already forming in the pit of his stomach.

"Ishida-kun, these robes are torn." She pointed to a small tear down the shoulder of her stolen shinigami garb. "I don't have needle or thread with me..."

"That's not a problem." He produced the requested items with a small, understated flourish.

"Oh! Thank you so much," she said, and she started to take them from him.

He carefully pushed her hands away without a word, threading the needle himself and then sending it whizzing through the motions to sew up the rip. The threads drew tight together and the seam slipped into invisibility. So did his worries, for just a moment. There was something about the way she looked at him that bound them up and hid them away.  



	2. Dinosaur

Pairing: Ichigo/Orihime. Can be read as platonic.

No prompt.

* * *

She hugged the neck of her beautiful dinosaur, which was as orange as the sun on a hazy day and as strong as--well, a dinosaur! Dinosaurs were very strong. This one was extra-strong and extra-fierce, even if he didn't need to be fierce because he was a plant-eater.

"Ichizilla-kun!" Orihime cried. "Onward to the Tree of Sunshine, where all living creatures love you!" Not that all living creatures didn't love Ichizilla already, of course.

Meanwhile, Ichigo wheezed and nearly doubled over from the force of her hug.  



	3. Kiss

Pairing: Tatsuki/Orihime.

No prompt.

* * *

Kissing Orihime was like cupping a butterfly in her hands.

When their lips met, it was the perfect moment. Their awkwardness only made the kiss all the sweeter.

But it was so evanescent. At first Tatsuki regretted that, wished the moment could go on forever with the two of them gathered together in its arms. It was not until many kisses later that she realized it was their transience that made them so perfect.

Orihime tilted her head just a little, and her eyelashes fluttered against Tatsuki's cheek like delicate wings. Then she pulled away, and the kiss was over.  



	4. Butterflies

Pairing: Yoruichi/Soi Fong.

No prompt. Set just after their fight.

* * *

White hands trace the black outlines of butterflies on brown skin. Where her pale fingers pass, Soi Fong removes the killing marks she left on Yoruichi's perfect skin.

Dark hands flow over white skin. Where her elegant fingers pass, Yoruichi removes Soi Fong's clothing.

Soi Fong withdraws the butterfly from Yoruichi's face last of all, and oddly reluctantly.

Yoruichi annihilates any regrets Soi Fong might have had with one kiss. She uses teeth.

When they finish, Soi Fong leaves a parting gift. She strikes one last indelible butterfly on her master, lovingly bound to the flesh of her inner thigh.  



	5. Brothers

Characters: Byakuya, one other.

No prompt. Warning for crossover with Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Takes place near the end of the Soul Society arc.

This is basically an experiment to prove that Byakuya is clearly related to Morpheus somehow.

* * *

In the white space between the Court of Pure Souls and the mute lands that lie even further from the world of the living, the elder brother finds someone is waiting for him. He expected no less.

He sinks to the ground, not sure whether to be sullen or relieved to finally find someone who is his superior.

The waiting figure does not speak for some moments. When he does, his voice comes from inside as well as out. _**"Kuchiki Byakuya."**_

"My lord," Byakuya says, his head bowed. The words are unfamiliar on his tongue (like the ground is unfamiliar to his knees), as unpalatable as coarse sand. He accepts with some reluctance that they are appropriate to this situation. The man before him is--more than a man. More than a shinigami, more than a god. He is taller and paler and (it is painful to admit) nobler than Byakuya himself. "Will you be closing the final curtain after me and taking me beyond?"

And now he sees a flicker of what might be surprise on the pale lord's face; he allows himself some small satisfaction at that. It is swiftly replaced by a very controlled, grave smile. _**"I am not your master, Kuchiki Byakuya."**_

At that, Byakuya rises more swiftly than he bowed in the first place. "Then I will not be escorted to my finality by a passing dignitary."

_**"You dare--"**_

Byakuya realizes immediately that those words were presumptuous of him, but he stands firm. He does not back down even when furious light flares like a star in each of the strange lord's eyes.

_**"This is not your end,"**_ the lord finally says. _**"And I will not be the one you see when that time comes."**_

In the blank stillness around them, nothing moves or changes.

_**"Though **_**oneesama**_** will not see you today, know that your service to her is honored."**_

Kuchiki Byakuya awakens for once thinking of Rukia's face and not Hisana's, but that is all he remembers.


	6. Kitten

Characters: Benihime (Urahara's zanpakutou) and Haineko (Rangiku's zanpakutou). Reference to Urahara/Yoruichi if you squint and stand on your head. Maybe.

No prompt.

* * *

"Show me you, at your worst," Haineko said as she padded slow circles around Benihime, leaving little puffs of soot in place of footprints.

"At my worst," said the lady, very precisely. Disdain leaked through her tone--

(--she had a thing about cats; even sweet kittens had begun to ruffle her tassels the wrong way lately--)

"If you would," said the kitten. "So we may fight, lady."

"Oh, my dear Haineko," said Benihime. She knelt to stroke that soft grey head--

(--for one thing, they _shed_.)

"Battle is _hardly_ what brings out the worst in me."


	7. Strip

Pairing: Hanatarou/the Shinigami Women's Assocation.  
Prompt: Strip poker.

Obviously, this is total crack.

* * *

"I have three kings," Hanatarou said hesitantly. "And--and two tens. Full house." He laid the cards down, eyes huge and pleading. He trembled on the brink of relief.

"Just a pair," Rukia said.

Soi Fong said, "I'm out."

"I folded last turn," Nemu said gravely.

"Damn!" Rangiku said. She took a drink from her sake bottle.

Nanao glowered at Rangiku. "You folded already. Why do you care? In any case, this game is _extremely_ inappropriate and we will _not_ be playing it again. I have a straight flush," she added.

Hanatarou's face fell. He whimpered.

"Yes!" Rangiku lunged for him, tearing off his last remaining item of clothing.

He shrieked, stumbled out of his chair and back, and then turned frantically and fled from the room.

They sat in silence for a moment. After a minute or so, Rukia leaned down and gathered up Hanatarou's discarded clothes. "I'll have someone bring these to him later. When he's calmed down."

"If he calms down," Nanao said.  



	8. Chemistry

Pairing: Urahara/Yoruichi/Soi Fong.  
Prompt: Chemistry.

* * *

He found them in a back room, and it was a delight: hundreds of years in, and Yoruichi kept surprising him.

"I have some..._chemistry_ experiments to do," Urahara said, eyeing the two of them. "You don't mind, do you?" His voice was sweet.

Soi Fong glared poison at him from her position beneath Yoruichi. "You interrupt Yoruichi-sama without so much as a warning?"

"Oh, I don't mind at all," Yoruichi said, placing a hand between Soi Fong's breasts to pin her down.

"Excellent," Urahara said, and he began to take off his clothes.  



	9. Braided

Pairing: Ishida/Orihime.  
Prompt: Braided.

* * *

When she flung her arms around him and buried her face in the crook of his neck, Ishida had the sudden feeling that the two of them were being twisted together, a braid of two-people-turned-one.

He dismissed the idea (although he found himself liking it). It was the sort of thing _she'd_ think, and it would just be embarrassing to be picking up her thought patterns. Still, the thought kept him oddly warm as he dozed next to her on the couch.

When he woke up, he found out he'd been wrong. The braids were real, and they were in his hair. She'd wound in a ribbon and some beads, too.  



	10. Insensate

Pairing: Gin/Rangiku.  
Prompt: Insensate.

* * *

There were days, long ago, when Rangiku would follow him around.

(She's better now.)

She'd lean on a railing and watch him train, and curiosity would grip her like a passion. She wouldn't so much _long_ as she would _wonder_. She wouldn't yearn to taste him--she would think, _Would he taste like apples?_

(Now she can stand in the divisions with him at meetings and feel nothing, as if all her curiosity has been paced out of her, leaving her empty, insensate.)

(Mostly.)

(Sometimes.)  



	11. Peril

Pairing: Tatsuki/Orihime.  
Prompt: Peril.

* * *

Beneath Orihime's head, Tatsuki's heart thumped reassuringly, and Orihime smiled.

"What is it?" Tatsuki asked.

"Oh," Orihime said, "it's hard to explain, but--I could tell you the story of the grave perils I faced to come here so that I could lie next to you like this, my head on your breast, your hand on my head, and how the pilots of the dragon-slaying mecha almost captured me in their trap before I could run to your side and save you, but--"

She stopped.

"I like the sound of your heart," she said simply.

"You can tell me that story," Tatsuki said. "Someday."  



	12. Synesthesia

Pairing: Urahara/Benihime.  
Prompt: Synesthesia.

* * *

When she's rough and restless inside his head, sometimes entire weeks go by with her plaguing his dreams most nights.

(She _is_ like a plague: infectious, bloody, feverish.)

She teases him in those dreams. She promises him a world full of senses he never knew existed, senses he could set to work discovering things he never imagined.

It's an old world, so many times older than he himself is, and more fluid than the thing called reality in every way. When she leans over him, her hair falling slickly around his face, her fingers stroking his neck feel like blood tastes, and the scent of her is like the sound of blood rushing in his ears.

Then she rocks against him and all the senses come together.

He wakes up to the thought:

_Human blood has the same salinity as the ancient seas._

But it's not a statement that can be proven, not in this world of concrete boundaries and boxed-in sensations.  



	13. Tense

Pairing: Urahara/Yoruichi/Soi Fong.  
Prompt: Tense.

* * *

"Like this," Urahara said with too smug a smile, as he knitted his fingers into the knots of tension in Yoruichi's back.

(It was bare. She didn't have anything on beneath or below it, either.)

Yoruichi purred, a familiar and comfortable sound.

Soi Fong shivered at the noise. But when she saw Urahara watching her expectantly, she lifted her head and gave him a sharp stare. "You take it too lightly," she said. "Yoruichi-sama's pleasure deserves more thought."

"Don't get riled up, Soi Fong," Yoruichi said, her eyes drifting closed. "Am I going to need to give _you_ a massage?"

"I could always try," Urahara said, smirking.

Flushing hotly, Soi Fong looked down at the expanse of dark skin beneath her, and she drew her fingers down the line of the spine.

Yoruichi _mewled_.


	14. White

Character: Hitsugaya.  
Prompt: White.

* * *

Hitsugaya likes the cool white world that Hyourinmaru shows him sometimes, likes lying there with his arms making angel's wings in the snow around him.

Not that he wants to admit this. It's such a peaceful world, too peaceful--it makes him feel like he's slacking off. He has work to deal with outside his head, investigations and papers.

The papers are white because he hasn't written on them yet. It's an accusing white. But here, in the land of snow, the white only means that the world is pure. He can sculpt it if he wants to, but he doesn't have to.

Still--

Hyourinmaru moves at the edge of his vision, and Hitsugaya suddenly reaches down, balls up a handful of snow, and flings it at the ice dragon, smiling. Almost laughing. He could stay here all day. He could _play_.

He quashes the smile. He has work to do.  



	15. Free

Characters: Ichigo, Grimmjow, and Orihime. Hints of Ichigo/Orihime if you squint.  
Prompt: Let the song of liberty be heard in the four corners of the earth.

* * *

It all comes down to this:

Ichigo and Grimmjow, their swords at each other's throats, blood everywhere.

It always comes down to this, to Ichigo fighting and bleeding. Sometimes he thinks he can't possibly have any more blood left. But once again he needs to find a little more to give, or Orihime will stay here, locked up in Aizen's dark kingdom.

Grimmjow is close enough for Ichigo to feel his breath, hot and ragged. "You think you can beat me now, here? I'm whole, I'm fucking _glorious_, and you're nothing but--"

Ichigo feels himself slipping, feels dark things inside him. He doesn't want to have to give himself over to them completely to save Orihime. It would feel somehow unclean. But Grimmjow is on him now, and he's not sure he has much choice any longer.

"Shut up," Ichigo says. "It doesn't matter what I _think_," he brings Zangetsu up in a sweeping arc, "only what I do to kick your ass."

Blood flies out again. Grimmjow staggers. He's weakened. If the others were close enough, they could help take him out now--but it's only Ichigo here and now, he is alone, and he has just spent the last of his energy. Now he will be finished.

Grimmjow takes a step back, preparing to deal the final blow. And then he stops, and then he falls.

Behind him is only Orihime, her hands outspread, her fairies around her. She freed herself, and she has come to join the fight of her own will.

"Thank you," she says, "Kurosaki-kun."

He doesn't see why _she's_ thanking _him_, but he can't exactly say so, since that's when he passes out from blood loss.


	16. Dreams

Characters: Orihime and Aizen  
Prompt: You took my dreams from me when I first found you.

* * *

The first few nights she spends in Hueco Mundo, Orihime dreams. It's strange, because she thought she would dream of Ichigo, who gave her the strength to survive here, or Rukia, who gave her comfort when she needed it.

But Hueco Mundo is not a place for dreams of romance. Instead, she dreams of Aizen, and she feels his hands around her heart, pulling something out of it, crushing it.

"What are you taking from me?"

He smiles at her, slow and unkind like a knife. "Your dreams. I can put them to better use."

Orihime can't imagine a life without her dreams and fantasies, and she always wakes up ready to cry.

Her dreams do not change until Aizen introduces her to the Hougyoku. Then when his hands close around her heart, they find not flesh but something hard and glinting like diamonds.

"This is better," he says, with an even stranger smile. "This is what belongs here."

And she is frightened, but she will not let it go.


	17. Together

Pairing: Renji/Rukia  
Prompt: I'll be with them asleep and dreaming, I'll be there when they wake with screaming.

* * *

"The orders are in," Renji said. "We leave for Karakura on earth tomorrow."

"I know," Rukia said. "Captain Ukitake told me this morning."

"Right," he said, but he could see in her eyes--she was already there, already fighting the new threat, redeeming herself in her own eyes even though she knew now that she needed no redeeming in the eyes of others.

"He didn't mention that you were coming, though," she said, and there was the faintest catch in her voice.

"Don't see why not," Renji said, pulling himself up straight. "I'm a force on my own now."

"I'm glad," she said, suddenly taking hold of his hand, and then he couldn't help it: he was looking into her eyes.

And he knew that if she was already there, always fighting at Ichigo's side against whatever threatened those she needed to protect, he was there as well, holding onto her. 


	18. Searching

Character: Hinamori  
Prompt: Somehow it don't seem right that something in the moon could change these endless days to lonely nights.

* * *

There are many people in Soul Society--most in Rukongai, true, but still a fair number in Seireitei. Hinamori always took this for granted, and she smiled at them often as they passed her by.

Now she walks through the white streets and sturdy halls and cannot believe how empty they are. She sees people, but they seem hollow. It was as if Aizen's smile animated everyone in her life. And now that it is gone--

No, that's not true. If he had been truly gone, truly dead for the final time, at least his bones could have formed the basis for a new life for her. He isn't gone; he's been stolen.

At first, Hinamori thinks she walks the white streets searching for Aizen himself. The real Aizen must be hidden somewhere, waiting to embrace her without pain this time.

But that illusion falls from her as the days--or more truly, the nights--pass. It is a pretty picture, but it crumbles in her hands. The Aizen that left, that was the real one. What she's searching for isn't him, but the strength he gave her once.

When she finds it, she will know whether it is the strength to follow him or the strength to destroy him. 


	19. Tears

Pairing: Rukia/Orihime  
Prompt: Orihime gives up on Ichigo.

* * *

Three years after Ichigo dons the mask and never takes it off again, Orihime finally breaks down and cries. She's cried about the monster Ichigo has become before, but the difference is that this time they're tears of defeat.

For a while, Tatsuki holds her as she cries, and her voice is savage with her own anger and loss as she tells her friend, "Just because you can't save him doesn't mean you can't win."

Orihime doesn't know if she can believe her, but she cries into her shoulder all the same.

But she cries more later, alone. It feels like her heart is liquefied and is coming out of her eyes.

She doesn't stop until she sees a shadow across her bed. She knows, then, who it is, and she has a feeling about the why as well.

Rukia kneels on Orihime's bed, and she holds out a hand, offering comfort, offering benediction.

But Orihime sees something broken in Rukia's eyes, and she has other ideas. Without saying a word, she turns out the light.

After a moment, there is a low, soft noise from Rukia. Orihime reaches out and lays a hand on her face, knowing what she'll find.

In the dark, Rukia can finally cry, too.

There are still tears on Orihime's face as well. But she brushes away Rukia's, first with her fingers, then with her mouth.

Slowly, the tears evaporate in the heat of their bodies entwined. 


End file.
